The air in the room felt different now.
Not dangerous.
Crowded.
As though people who had been dead for years had entered quietly and were standing around us, waiting for their turn to speak.
My mother.
My father.
Margaret.
Their secrets crossing decades.
Their decisions shaping lives they could no longer explain.
I turned the envelope over.
Something was written faintly beneath the flap.
A name.
Almost erased.
I tilted it toward the light.
Then I saw it.
Ruth.
My body went cold.
Douglas must have seen my face.
“What?”
I couldn’t speak.
“Hannah?”
I pointed.
He squinted.
Lucas came closer.
“What does it say?”
Douglas read it.
“Ruth.”
He looked at me.
I stared at him.
“Ruthie.”
The nickname.
The name only Douglas called me.
The name he’d whispered when I answered the phone.
Lucas looked between us.
“Why would Marianne write that?”
“She wouldn’t.”
I turned the envelope over and over.
